Satellite Fails After Launch From Shuttle

September 11, 1985|By James Fisher of The Sentinel Staff

CAPE CANAVERAL — Baffled aerospace technicians scurried Tuesday to learn why a military communications satellite stopped sending signals to Earth during routine testing eight days after it was launched from the shuttle Discovery.

The Leasat-4, put in orbit Aug. 29, is nearly identical to the Leasat-3 that spacewalking astronauts captured and rewired during the same mission.

The malfunctioning satellite worked until Friday when it had difficulty relaying signals to the ground. Later in the day the transmissions stopped. Technicians still were able Tuesday to control the satellite's position and operate its systems.

Jack Bateman, spokesman for Hughes Aircraft, which builds the Leasats, said the problem appears to be serious. Experts have a few clues about what caused the malfunction, Bateman said by phone from El Segundo, Calif.

The satellite is insured for nearly $85 million, which includes the cost of building and launching a replacement.

Technicians tried Tuesday to simulate the failure using ground equipment, said Elizabeth Hess of Hughes Communications. The Navy leases the satellites from Hughes Communications as part of a contract that calls for four orbiting satellites.

The Leasat-4 had performed flawlessly during two days of tests before it failed, Hughes officials said.

After the Leasat-4 was released from Discovery, a built-in rocket booster propelled it to a position 22,300 miles above the Pacific. A repair mission would be out of the question because the shuttle can fly only a few hundred miles up.

Meanwhile, the solid rocket fuel aboard the repaired Leasat-3 has been heating slowly as technicians had hoped. The satellite, without power since it was launched from Discovery in April, is orbiting more than 200 miles above the Earth.